The Ingredients To Look For In A Quality Canned Margarita

A margarita is a beguilingly simple cocktail with just traditionally used ingredients: tequila, lime juice, and some form of sugar. It stands on its own as a cocktail staple and is the perfect way to add a dose of summer sunshine to any day. But is it possible to sell that sunshine in a can? According to the growing sales of canned, or ready-to-drink, cocktails, the answer is yes.

However, that does not mean that all canned margaritas are created equally. In fact, for all of their simplicity, margaritas are a rather tricky cocktail to can, with many ready-to-drink margaritas failing to capture the exact taste of lime and tequila necessary for a genuine margarita. Many ready-to-drink margaritas fall short of their fresh-made counterparts due to their use of alternative ingredients such as malt-based alcohols and citrus juice alternatives which are easier to can but lack the aromatic appeal of fresh juice.

What ingredients should you look out for when picking the perfect canned margarita? First, you'll want to look out for ready-to-drink cocktails that contain actual tequila rather than malt-based alcohol or agave wine. Canned margaritas with a malt base will not fully replicate the tequila taste of a fresh margarita. And though agave wine has a similar flavor profile as tequila, it isn't the real thing. The second ingredient you will want to look out for is actual lime juice, rather than citric acid, which can replicate the acidic taste of a margarita, but doesn't match the lime taste.

It should be noted that canning a margarita isn't as simple as squeezing lime juice into a can. Citrus juice in particular is a difficult ingredient to can. This is because citrus juice does not taste good when it is not served fresh. And over time, the juice can turn bitter and unpleasant. Additionally, citrus juice tends to oxidize rather quickly and has a shelf life of only a few days, making it less than optimal for canning.

Citrus juice, including lime, can be pasteurized before canning, helping it to stay fresh for longer in the can. However, the pasteurization process does compromise the juice's flavor somewhat. For this reason, many canned margaritas use citric acid in the place of actual juice to replicate the taste without the risk of using actual juice. But some canned margarita makers have found a way to bring the lime to the can, so to speak, using a lime concentrate that uses both the juices and oils of the lime to reconstruct the taste of fresh lime.

Many canned cocktails use a neutral malt base rather than distilled spirits as their base. This is because malt-based drinks are taxed at a lower level than distilled spirits. Additionally, malt-based alcohols can serve as a neutral taste for other flavors to layer on top of when creating canned cocktails. This means that other flavors, such as sweeteners and fruit juice can feature more prominently in the drink.

For these reasons, many supposed canned cocktails are made with malt-based alcohol, with adorning flavors added to simulate their fresh cocktail companions. However, more ready-to-drink cocktails include actual distilled alcohol as their base, and if you're looking for a true-to-life canned margarita, this is what you will want to look out for, rather than a malt, or agave wine base, which has a similar taste to tequila but simply doesn't match the real thing.

With all of this being said, you might be hard-pressed to find an exact ingredient listing on your pack of canned cocktails. Unlike other products, such as non-alcoholic canned beverages and other food and drinks, alcoholic beverages are not required to show their ingredients on a label (or at all). And though many consumers would prefer more transparency regarding the ingredients in their alcoholic beverages, the true components that go into your canned cocktail are rather opaque.

So how, exactly, are you supposed to figure out which canned cocktail to choose? For the best shot at getting the best sip, you might just have to rely on what your canned cocktail chooses to show. While some ready-to-drink cocktail makers are more than a little murky regarding their ingredients list, others, such as The Post Meridiem's The Real Lime Juice Margarita and Tip Top's canned margarita, actually list their ingredients as a large part of their drink's label, promising a simple, delicious, and true to life cocktail. However, it should be noted that these labels are not the same as the ingredient labels found on other products, and are not bound to the same specificity as actual ingredient labels on non-alcoholic food and drinks. So finding a truly fresh and simple canned margarita might be a matter of trial and error. But you can just count that as another reason to crack open another drink.